On 28 August 1947 in Oświęcim, Appellate Investigative Judge Jan Sehn, member of the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, acting at the written request of the First Prosecutor of the Supreme National Tribunal, this dated 25 April 1947 (Ref. no. NTN 719/47), in accordance with the provisions of and procedure provided for under the Decree of 10 November 1945 (Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland No. 51, item 293), and in connection with art. 254, 107, and 115 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, interviewed as a witness the person specified below, a [former] prisoner of the Auschwitz concentration camp, who testified as follows:
| Name and surname | Henryk Porębski |
| Age | 36 |
| Religious affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Nationality and citizenship | Polish |
| Occupation | clerk |
| Place of residence | Auschwitz-Birkneau Memorial and Museum in Oświęcim |
I was transported to the Auschwitz camp from Tarnów prison on 8 October 1940 and I remained there until 18 January 1945 as a Polish political prisoner, number 5809. From February 1942, I stayed in Birkenau and worked as an electrician for the remainder of my time there.
Directly after I was transferred to Birkenau, I worked setting up a fence. The fence was electrified and used the three-phase current, with phases of 220 volts each. The electric fence in the main camp operated likewise. The camp quarters for the prisoners in Birkenau were not to have electric lighting installed and the camp management did not issue any materials to that end. We performed the relevant works through our own adroitness, using materials “organized” by the prisoners. The wires were electrified to the height of a man and were stretched at 15cm intervals in the lower part of five insulators, and the insulators in the upper part of the fence were spread at 30cm intervals. Every third post had a 100-watt lamp fixed to it, its light directed inside the camp. It was only in 1943, after a fire broke out in one of the barracks of the women’s camp as a result of a short- circuit in the makeshift installation we had set up, that the camp management decided to install a proper electric lighting system in the barracks. Officially, three lamps per block were allowed.
I was an independent electrician, subordinated only to the foremen from the electricians kommando. My duties included the maintenance of water pumps in the FKL [Frauenkonzetrationslager, women’s concentration camp] and in crematoria IV and V, the maintenance of engines in all crematoria, and the maintenance of the fence.
I lived in the Frauenkonzetrationslager. I went by the nickname “Little Henio” among the female prisoners. Since the devices I maintained required constant repair, I could move around Birkenau unrestricted at all times. I would always go to my workplace in the company of an SS guard or alternatively – in the case of the crematoria – with head of a crematorium.
The trial of the operation of the crematoria and gas chambers in Birkenau was conducted in crematorium II. Initially, the electrical installation in this crematorium and its gas chamber ran in the open, uncased and unsecured, and during a gassing, the victims crammed in the chamber broke it off. During the first gassing, gas cans were thrown into the chamber through holes in the ceiling. To save their comrades, people ate the cyclone so the gassing was prolonged and did not yield expected results, so eventually, the SS men had to shoot the prisoners crowded in the chamber. After the trial, the electrical installation was covered with parget and, in order to secure the cyclone, wire-netting pillars were prepared, into which the contents of cyclone cans were thrown through a hole in the ceiling.
After a gassing, women had their hair cut off, and teeth made of gold and other noble metals were removed from all corpses. The Sonderkommando [special unit] prisoners sabotaged these works. In many cases, they would thrust these teeth down the corpses’ throats. This explains the presence of gold in the ashes of burnt corpses.
Between three to five corpses were loaded to one retort furnace. The incineration of any such load took around half an hour. During the period of highly intensified work, corpses were not properly incinerated so that parts of muscles came off the bodies and fell into the ash collector. Mieczysław Morawa, the Heizers [stokers] kapo, told me that these partly burnt, roasted muscles were picked from the ash collector and taken to Harmęża, to fish ponds, as fish feed. Some portions of the powdery, ground ash were placed in a barn near crematorium V and then scattered across the fields as fertilizer. Most of the ashes were taken to the said barn, and when it was full, the remaining portion was taken to the Vistula River and then thrown in its waters. Human ashes were also used to fertilize the soil of vegetable gardens created at crematoria II and III. Trees planted at those two crematoria to create a hedge grew on human ashes.
I recall that in the middle of 1944 new staff arrived at the grounds of the Birkenau crematoria from the Majdanek camp. This is when a German kapo Karl came to Birkenau. Also, several Russian prisoners arrived at that time and were hired for operations in the crematoria. I do not recall the name of Muhsfeldt, their boss. I recognize him in the photograph shown to me, I know that he was with the Sonderkommando and I used to see him in the company of Houstek-Eber from the Political Department. I will be able to provide details of his activities once Muhsfeldt has been presented to me.
Having lived in the pump house, which was located in the bathhouse of section IB, that is just next to the railway ramp and close to the crematoria, I had the possibility to watch mass transports arriving at the said ramp. The following persons were in attendance upon the arrival of any such transport: the commandant of the camp, the Lagerführer [camp leader], the head of the Political Department, and a doctor.
When SS-Untersturmführer Garbner, who was head of the Political Department until November 1943, arrived at the ramp, he used to leave his motorcycle or bike in the pump house, where I lived. He rode with a suitcase, which always contained a gas mask. He only came to us to collect his motorcycle after the entire transport was processed, that is after the victims were sent to the gas chambers or alternatively – a selected group – to the camp.
The Sonderkommando, tasked with operations in the gas chambers and crematoria, was under his command. He ordered the gassing of members of the prisoners’ Sonderkommando. The first such prisoners’ kommando in Birkenau was formed in April or May 1942. It numbered 20 people. Roughly until June 1942, the personnel of the Sonderkommando was replaced every two weeks, as prisoners serving on the unit were killed. Starting mid-1942, the kommando was constantly expanding, and at the beginning on December 1942, it reached the number of 800 prisoners. On 8 December 1942, on the orders of Grabner, the entire kommando was moved to the main camp and gassed in the gas chamber of the old crematorium. Some of the corpses were incinerated in crematorium I, while others were burned on pyres in Birkenau.
Grabner trusted Morawa, and Morawa, in turn, believed Grabner. He repeatedly asked Grabner for a transfer to another kommando. Grabner assured him that he would not come to any harm and that he need not worry. I know from Morawa that Grabner accepted gifts from him. Among others, Józef Dytnar, currently residing in Kraków, Kraszewskiego Street 11, delivered to Morawa, and for Grabner’s benefit, a Messerschmitt model he had built. On 5 January 1945, Morawa and a couple of others, including Stanisław Ślęzak, who was on the staff of Schumann’s x-ray station, were transported to Mauthausen, where they were locked away in a bunker and then executed around Easter.
Also Liebehenschel, Höß’s deputy commandant at Auschwitz, picked up transports of people to be gassed from the ramp at Birkenau. He was present as selections of such transports were performed. The same applies to Aumeier, the Auschwitz Schutzhaftlagerführer [camp leader], who we called “Łokietek” [elbow-high], because he was exceptionally short, and to Lagerführerin Maria Mandl, who was also present on the ramp for the pick-up of such transports; additionally, she herself performed selections in the women’s camp under her command. The female prisoners she selected were gathered at block 25, from where they were taken away in vans to be gassed. The information about the activities of all the camp functionaries I have mentioned can be provided by Bilan, who fulfilled functions in the camp until October 1944.
The report was read out. At this point the interview and the present report were concluded.